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Headlines · 5
- Manus raises over $500M, reportedly at a $4B valuation
On October 8, Manus parent Butterfly Effect announced a new funding round of more than $500 million, led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital with existing backers Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund participating; no valuation was disclosed, though Bloomberg previously reported a target of about $4 billion. It is Manus's first outside funding since it resumed independent operations on September 1, after Meta's acquisition was blocked by regulators in April and the founding team and investors bought the shares back at a $20 billion... correction: at a $20 billion figure was the buyback valuation reported by Bloomberg, with Tencent becoming the largest outside shareholder. On September 28 Manus released version 2.0 and a personal agent app, Cue; reports say its annualized revenue run rate has reached $400-500 million, though the revenue mix has not been disclosed.
钛媒体 · 🔥 0 - Manus raises over $500M at reported $4B valuation after Meta deal collapse
According to a TMTPost article, Butterfly Effect, Manus's parent company, said in an Oct. 8 announcement that it closed a new funding round of more than $500 million, led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with existing backers Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund following on. No post-money valuation was disclosed; the article cites late-September media reports putting it at roughly $4 billion — about double the nearly $2 billion Meta had agreed to pay before that acquisition was halted and the company returned to independent operation on Sept. 1. The article also describes the Sept. 28 launch of Manus 2.0 and the Cue personal agent app, the building of a China-focused team with domestic model partners, and ARR said to have grown from $100 million in December 2025 to a $400–500 million range by end-June 2026 — figures that were not officially confirmed.
钛媒体 · 🔥 0 - Manus raises over $500M at ~$4B valuation, double its Meta-era price
Butterfly Effect, parent of Manus, said it closed a new round of more than $500 million led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with existing backers Tencent, HongShan and ZhenFund participating, at a valuation of about $4 billion — twice the $2 billion Meta had offered and the largest single round for a China-born agent startup. The funding follows Manus 2.0 on Sept. 28, which swapped its underlying agent execution framework for in-house Cascade, added a 24/7 cloud computer and event-triggered workflows, upgraded the desktop app into Manus Studio for video and game work, and launched Cue, which gives each agent its own email, phone number, wallet and computer. The report says ARR rose from $100 million in December 2025 to a $400–500 million range by end-June 2026, though that surge coincided with the seven months Manus operated inside Meta.
36氪 人工智能 · 🔥 0 - AI otome games lose ground as token costs outrun funding
Two heavily funded Chinese AI otome games, Xingmian (by Muyan Zhiyu) and Wuxiangu, opened their second beta tests last month; Xingmian raised nearly RMB 300 million across four 2024 rounds at a USD 120 million valuation, while Wuxiangu took over USD 10 million from ZhenFund and IDG Capital within half a year of founding. But the article says the sector has cooled: almost none of these studios train their own models, relying instead on Zhipu AI, DeepSeek and ChatGPT, so every extra free-form chat turn costs money upstream. EVE, the only AI otome game in official launch, drew backlash for offering just 10 free chat turns a day with monthly passes at RMB 68-328, sending its rating to 2.2, and the authors argue founders lack otome-game experience and staff far fewer people than Love and Deepspace's 300-person team.
虎嗅 AI · 🔥 0 - Manus parent Butterfly Effect raises over $500M at reported $4B valuation
Butterfly Effect, the parent of AI agent startup Manus, said on Oct. 8 it raised more than $500 million (~3.35 billion yuan) in a round led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with existing backers Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund joining. Bloomberg had reported the round at a roughly $4 billion valuation, double the prior $2 billion, and Chinese media called it the largest single round for a China-based agent-native startup. It is the company's first raise since Beijing forced Meta to unwind its roughly $2 billion acquisition, and follows the Sept. 29 release of Manus 2.0 and the multi-agent group chat app Cue; the company says its in-house Cascade framework cut token use 23.2%, task time 28.2% and running cost 32% in one test configuration.
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